


Waste Our Lights In Vain

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-21
Updated: 2004-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romeo will be as Romeo will be, and Mercutio will always be near at hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waste Our Lights In Vain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thermidor

 

 

**i.**

There is a door inside Mercutio, in the shape of Romeo. It blows with the wind; open and shut, open and shut.

Romeo sleeps as the sun climbs the sky. Mercutio waits for him, his back against the hot bricks until noon and past - slipping bits of onion into his mouth and watching dogs bark at one another.

There is an orchard outside the walls of Verona, where trees heavy with pears bend toward the ground like washer women toward the river. Mercutio squints into the light, white and blinding, and his mouth remembers the crunch and tang of the fruit. He remembers the sound of Romeo's feet pounding against the rich ground as Mercutio chased him. Mercutio remembers the scratch of bark against his own hands as he climbed to sit beside Romeo. He remembers the shifting light through the leaves, shade and sun dappling Romeo's face as Mercutio plucked a pear and held it out, in wordless offer. And Romeo's lips, his teeth, as he bit into it, his eyes like slate.

In Romeo's rooms, the curtains are clapped together over windows, and darkness climbs the walls like vines. Romeo lies on his bed, one arm flung over his face. His open shirt shows his pink skin, the sweat over his throat, arched and miserable. He mutters in his sleep, different names as days pass, but always a woman long-necked and pale-faced. Romeo makes love to their names with his lips, his tongue, curving his mouth around their names as his hands will never curve around their bodies.

They are always untouchable, impossible.

Mercutio's hair is like straw, and it falls in front of his eyes. He pushes it behind his ear with one of his freckled hands, and pulls his legs tighter beneath him. His sword scrapes the stones. It makes flicks of fire, little cracks of light.

On the street before him, a woman walks with a basket of vegetables and poultry, the long body of a goose draped over a pale gold gourd. A boy trails after her, in Montague colors. He drags his toes through the dust, carrying a bleeding package wrapped in dark brown paper - meat for the old Montague.

In the square, there is a market filled with squawking merchants and flapping birds. There are bushels of nuts, baskets of fruit. Mercutio has fast hands, and while Romeo sighs over farmers' daughters, Mercutio often fills his pockets.

Later, they always share it together. Mercutio knows the way strawberries redden Romeo's lips as they sit on the city wall, looking out at low hills to the north. Romeo's dark eyes and his reckless curls, the black hair falling over his brow. His skin is pale like marble is pale, not like snow smudged with dirt or the dusty wings of pigeons - his skin is like the white floors of the cathedral, the stone of the statues.

Romeo is a year younger than Mercutio, though he holds the years he has heavily, seriously. Romeo was born in August at the tail end of a sultry summer.

Mercutio was born in spring as ice broke open like an egg, hatching green grass from the frost of winter, summer from snow.

He has lived eighteen years to Romeo's seventeen. Mercutio has seen Romeo each day since he can remember.

He has never waited for anyone else.

**ii.**

Romeo has learned a new word. It is Rosaline.

Mercutio's mask scratches his cheeks, and plaster flakes into his eyes as he watches Romeo kneel before her green skirts, her sallow hands, her plump face.

Romeo watches her, his face a triangle of adoration, his lips quivering with lust. Rosaline covers her mouth with fluttering fingers as she yawns, and looks away.

Mercutio is not impressed.

**iii.**

It's almost dark, and Romeo lies on his back, staring sullenly at the sluggish river, his fingers twisting knots into the long grass. His burnt cheeks flash pink in the veil of grey twilight dropping all around them.

Mercutio's belly is full of wine, and his head is filled with Romeo's praise for Rosaline. It seems they've lain here for days, and Mercutio has said not a word in hours, listening to Romeo's voice drag through a dirge of compliments for his new lady.

She is a goddess, she is Diana, she is Venus - Mercutio has seen her, and she is none. She is a short, plump girl with nut-brown hair and eyes like water.

Romeo says he will die of loving her. Mercutio watches his friend's wide eyes, his broad hands.

If courting is nothing but the turning of a pretty phrase far from the ears of the beloved, Mercutio is courting Romeo even now:

Romeo's eyes are black rocks worn by the river gleaming at noon.

Romeo's hair is a tangle of black ribbons, coiled into soft curls.

Romeo's lips are ripe grapes.

Romeo's legs are long and sweetly curved.

Romeo's hands are birds.

Romeo's skin is a church.

Romeo's shoulders are solid, and strong like cornerstones.

Romeo's voice is a rush of swans.

Romeo's smile is a tulip, an orange, a candied pear, a glitter of fire as winter shivers ice down.

"Come," Romeo says, standing and slouching toward his father's house. Mercutio follows.

**iv.**

Mercutio has loved women with his body. He has kissed women's lips, and touched women's hips. He's woken with his face pressed into the rumpled sheets of a bed made hot with sex.

He has also known a man's touch as well. He's fumbled with hose, and felt a sword-rough hand take him expertly, squeezing and stroking apace until his eyes roll into his head and he spends and slumps.

He has never touched Romeo like that, but he knows the way Romeo's body strains as they fence, the tension of his trim thighs, the way he holds his arms, his short reach, and fast parry.

He has pinned Romeo to the earth, and held him there until he cried peace, and laughed.

Once, Mercutio watched Romeo lick pear juice from his lower lip, and felt Romeo's hand trace circles on Mercutio's forearm. Circles linking over and over and over again, maddening circles, small and complete and finished when Romeo swung back to the ground.

Romeo has not touched him since.

**v.**

It is the second week of wretched Rosaline, who waves her fan and laughs shrilly. Romeo lives and dies in her fat face, her black-toothed smile. He will not laugh, nor will he smile, nor will he dance, nor will he listen as Mercutio speaks. All of Mercutio's words flutter uselessly against Romeo's perfect ears when Rosaline clumps into a room.

And so Mercutio has left them to their Montague fête, and sits with his elbows flush against the wood of a bar. Wine pools beside his hand, so dark a purple it looks almost black.

Open and shut, open and shut; the door inside Mercutio slams and opens loudly as he stares into his cup. Romeo is a lover more persistent than any Mercutio has ever seen; his love is for tragedy, all the artful poses of heartbreak.

Mercutio has none of Romeo's delight in sadness. He sucks wine from his fingertips, and it's bitter.

Cold wind blows in from the street as a man in Capulet colors enters, flipping his cloak over his shoulders, and inclining his head toward the proprietress.

He has been so long around Romeo that Mercutio forgets he is not a Montague. He forces his hand away from his sword-hilt, and when the Capulet's eyes chance to meet his, he nods his head in welcome.

It's one of the old Capulet's nephews, Tybalt - the Prince of Cats who always lands on his feet. Mercutio smiles a little, and Tybalt cocks his head to the side, raises an eyebrow. His slanted eyes are black, and his hair is dark and smoothed over his forehead.

He will do, Mercutio decides after a moment, and motions him over.

**vi.**

They spill out of the tavern while night lies still along the street. A dog barks, and Tybalt pushes Mercutio against a wall. They don't speak.

Tybalt's breath is salty against Mercutio's neck, his hips bony when Mercutio pulls the cloth from them. Tybalt's hand snakes down Mercutio's hose and squeezes his prick roughly.

Mercutio groans, and Tybalt's smile is sharp and pleased against his neck. Tybalt bites him gently, and Mercutio pulls him close, closer still until they're rubbing against each other, Tybalt's hand holding them together. Tybalt is as hard as Mercutio, and breathes into Mercutio's hair.

Tybalt's taller than Romeo, Mercutio thinks as he gasps, and thrusts hard into Tybalt's sure hands.

Tybalt is whipcord and muscle, lean and flexible, and fast - he is sinuous as he moves against Mercutio, and Mercutio's hand scrabbles for purchase on Tybalt's back. Tybalt is silent and confident, and he moves quickly, so quickly, rocking hard against Mercutio and Mercutio shakes and shakes and shakes until he is spent.

Tybalt throws back his face as he shudders, and in the moonlight his neck is white, so white. Mercutio's hands tremble, and he touches his fingers to it.

**vii.**

Mercutio lounges on the steps in the square, in front of the cathedral. Pigeons flicker around the statue beside him, but he waves them away restlessly as Romeo and Benvolio complain behind him.

Across the way, Tybalt spars with another young Capulet. He's controlled, and efficient - precise. His dark hair stirs with the wind as he fights.

Mercutio leans forward, watching. Tybalt grins viciously as he brings his sword point to rest at his opponent's throat. His chest moves rapidly, and his breath steams in the air.

Tybalt fights expertly, each motion neat, exquisite. He's the best swordsman Mercutio has seen.

Tybalt pivots, and his eyes catch Mercutio's. Across the square, a small smile blossoms on Tybalt's face but Romeo stiffens, says, "Capulets."

Benvolio puts a hand on Romeo's shoulder, leads him away. Mercutio follows, and sees Tybalt look away, flushed.

**viii.**

Three weeks, and Rosaline's name still pollutes the air from Romeo's constant exaltations. Mercutio sits in Romeo's dark room, and Romeo paces, his longing becoming frenzy.

Mercutio is bored; he has seen this before. He watches Romeo's legs, his hair, his hands, and his own body stiffens. He idly wonders where Tybalt is.

Tybalt, who is a rapier at the throat of the Montagues. Tybalt of the hungry hands, and warm lips, and the fast lunge. Tybalt is a weapon Mercutio has used against himself. To use him again would cut Tybalt as well and Tybalt belongs to old Capulet.

It would not do to damage another man's sword. So Mercutio is here, in the house of the Montagues, talking at the dark cedar beams of the ceiling, saying nothing of any substance.

Romeo hangs glumly about the window, staring hard at Rosaline's house, as if he could will her out of it. Mercutio thinks of dragging the chit out by her lank hair and tossing her at Romeo, to stop Romeo's droning desire for her. Romeo's love is a fat black fly, buzzing listlessly in the hot air.

Mercutio would stop it, if he could. Of course, he cannot. Romeo will be as Romeo will be, and Mercutio will always be near at hand.

He lounges on Romeo's bed, pillows stacked beneath his head. His stomach growls loudly, and Romeo carries over a bowl of fruit, sits beside Mercutio's legs.

Romeo frowns down at the bowl, and then holds out a pear. Mercutio's eyes widen, but Romeo says nothing as he puts the pear in Mercutio's palm, and looks back through the window toward Rosaline's house.

Outside, women hang laundry on thin ropes, and the courtyard billows with fabric, sheets snapping like flags, wind filling shirts and cloaks with invisible bodies. The women laugh, and talk. Their voices clatter up, into Romeo's bedroom.

Mercutio contemplates the pear, but doesn't eat it. He sets it beside Romeo's bed, pushes himself up from Romeo's pillows, and puts a hand on Romeo's shoulder.

Romeo turns to him, his eyes skittering back out the window even as he asks what Mercutio is doing. Mercutio pushes hair off Romeo's forehead, and curls his hand around the nape of Romeo's neck. He touches his nose to Romeo's and closes his eyes.

"We are fools, you and I," he says almost too loudly, and when his lips move, he feels Romeo's soft mouth against his own.

"Yes, we are," Romeo says, his lips pressing gently against Mercutio's for one short moment before pulling away slowly to stand before the window again.

**ix.**

The pear sits beside Romeo's bed for days, until it's too ripe. Its skin rips; juice runs down the round gold sides like tears.

In the tavern where Mercutio first saw him, Tybalt draws his sword and calls Mercutio a Montague. They fight their way into the street, where there are more Capulets and a brace of real Montagues. Mercutio's Uncle Escalus breaks apart the fray, and Romeo slings one of Mercutio's arms over his shoulder - takes Mercutio to his room for doctoring.

Romeo lights a single candle, and finds wine enough for them to drink. Benvolio sits on the windowsill, and dabs at the cut on his lip with his shirt as Romeo pours them each a glass.

Mercutio stares at the empty spot beside Romeo's bed, the brown tabletop where the pear isn't. Romeo hands Mercutio a goblet, and Mercutio doesn't ask what happened to the fruit.

**x.**

Mercutio is cold, and the stones of the street dig into his back.

Romeo's face crumbles and folds. He's sorry; Mercutio knows this look. Open and shut, open and shut - slower, now, but with every breath, still, the door swings. Mercutio reaches a hand up, and he puts fingers sticky with his own blood beneath Romeo's white chin. He traces circles there, and Romeo closes his eyes; he turns his face and puts a kiss on the very edge of Mercutio's fingers.

When Romeo pulls away, there is red on his lips.

Open and shut. Open and...

 

 

 


End file.
